Van Wyck native son's quest for gold the talk of the town

By Staff Reports

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VAN WYCK -- In this tiny place of dreams, Van Wyck, spurred on by the powerful legs of a native son, a woman named Betty Broome who has lived there all of her 70-plus years made this definitive statement: "This is the most exciting thing to ever happen in this community."

"This" means Shawn Crawford running for another gold medal in the 200 meters in the Olympics.

"This" is huge in small Van Wyck, a place in Lancaster County near the Catawba River with maybe, maybe, 300 people in it. A place where to have a Van Wyck mailing address one must keep a post office box, or else your address for home delivery says "Lancaster."

Almost everybody prefers going to get the mail at the post office because it is Van Wyck.

All prefer their mail to say Van Wyck, partly because of Shawn Crawford. I have seen myself people showing off the postmark. Crawford won a gold medal and a silver in 2004 in Athens, Greece -- there are road signs leading into town that say so -- and Crawford is set to try again starting tonight in the games in Beijing.

"This," Shawn Crawford's run to glory, is the talk of all, young and old. "This" further unites people who are black and white, Presbyterian and African Methodist Episcopal.

"We in Van Wyck are all in this together, every neighbor, every friend," Broome said. "I mailed Shawn in China clippings of every story, and a 'Good Luck' note from all of us. I am so proud of him. We all are."

Including people at the Lancaster K-Mart, who followed Sylvia Crawford, Shawn's mother who still lives in Van Wyck, around Thursday.

"One lady kept saying, 'He's my baby, too, like my own son,' and she never even met Shawn," Sylvia Crawford said. "Another lady stopped me short and said, 'Oh, Lord, it's that guy Crawford's momma. Tell him I am rooting for him.' I had a bunch in the TV section gathered around, talking about how Shawn was going to win for all of them, make all of us around here proud."

Sylvia Crawford and her best friend, Marilyn Tims, left Friday for Beijing to watch her son race, knocking Van Wyck's population down almost a whole 1 percent. It was Tims' first plane ride at 52 years of age.

But to be with Shawn Crawford, a person she has seen achieve and helped with any love she was asked for, is worth it.

"I even learned the Chinese words for 'Hello,' 'Thank you,' and 'You're welcome,' " Tims said. "I'm working on 'Good luck.' "

For Sylvia Crawford, overseas trips to the Olympics are old hat. She was right there in Athens to cheer on Shawn four years ago and wouldn't miss her son's chance for more immortality for anything on earth.

"He really does make this whole place, Van Wyck, special," Sylvia Crawford said.

Tonight a little after 10, Crawford runs his first qualifying heat. A sigh of relief went up in the town, because some thought it was 10 a.m.

"I was ready, and I don't mind telling anyone, that I was ready to skip Sunday School just to watch Shawn run," Broome said. "There were plenty of people who were ready to miss church, even -- but just this once."

That right there might show what it means in little Van Wyck to have one of their own running for a gold medal in the Olympics: Wonderful people who take their family, and faith, and community as one, were ready to ask God if they could have an absence to watch their favorite "son" on TV.